I strike terror among men.I can't be bothered by what they think.I bare my cross,My soul,Myself.I forgive,but i never forget.I've been put upon this earth in female form.But I can handle myself with the best of you,As well as the worst.And I often have.I have the right to remain silent,But i choose to speak,Sing,ScreamI am lips,Hips,TitsI am the power of a woman,Strong like music,True like friendship,But without my friends,There would be no music.Only spoken word.

Fucker! x2

I am able to change,So I live without regret,Without remorse,Only a remix.I am drunk,I am sober.Heaven doesn't want meAnd Hell's afraid i'll take overDon't bother trying to censor me,Or shut me up,Because it won't work.I am cold and distant,Yet warm and close,To those who deserve to see that side of me.Part of me the heart of me.You find me so hard to understand in your world.The world you perceive to be so normal.I am deformed,Scorned ,Reborn.I am me,And i know exactly who i am,What i amAnd the wrath i bring.The ugly beauty,The lying truth,The virgin whoreThe quiet stormA lover,A fighter,A saint,A sinner,A sister,A daughterOld school.A beginner.I have decorated myself with love,Hate,Truth,You.All of you,Both of you,None of you,More than one of you

Fucker! x2

With lips like sugar.Eyes like meat.I've watched men come,And go,And cheat.I sleep to dreamAnd dream of sleep.I had a dream joeThat you were standing in the middle of an open grove.I had a dream joeThat your hands were raised up to the skyAnd your mouth was covered in foam.I've been crucified,Justified,And mortified by my behavior.Both feminine,And masculine.I am a contradiction,And juxtaposition.My relief is my release,And only time will tell.All's well that ends wellI am unsweetened,Unclean,Been called drama queen.Ex girlfriend,Ex member,The tantrum,The temper.I point my finger,Take the blame.And this time I will own the name.Because no one is going to ruin me.If i have to,I will ruin myself.And it will be 'My Ruin'(My Ruin)

"Because many white conservatives only interact with like-minded people who come from the same racial background, it seemed obvious to them that Obama was going to be defeated on election night. With the defeat of Mitt Romney, they are experiencing the universal hurt that comes when reality interjects itself into a dream world and fantasy.

Many white people are feeling imperiled because President Obama’s win is being framed by the news media as a sign that people of color are gaining political power in the United States. The pundits keep talking about “the browning of America” and how the Republican Party will continue to lose elections if it just relies on white voters to win. I imagine that many white people, especially conservatives and older voters, may be feeling a bit obsolete as the country changes around them.

But I will tell you things that other people will not; I will tell you the truth even when it makes you upset.

The media wants to scare you with all sorts of talk about how, in a few decades, America will be a “majority minority” country. You “want your country back,” and people mock you for these sentiments. I am a good listener. Other people find joy in your tears and from the sad images of Mitt Romney’s headquarters, Republican rallies, and voters on election night. I feel your pain.

Guess what? Things are going to be okay.

First, we need to admit that many white conservatives have a problem. They are victims. I know that you do not want to hear that word. “Victims” is a word that only the liberals, progressives, Black people, gays, and feminists use.

Please hear me out. We know that most conservatives get their news and information exclusively from Fox News and other types of right-wing media. I get the appeal of this habit: it feels really good to be told that your point of view is correct, and that most of the country agrees with you, even when it does not.

You are very trusting people by nature. As conservatives, you are also very deferential to authority. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the right-wing media have been saying that good white folks like you are being discriminated against by Barack Obama and his legions of black and brown people. There are supposedly groups of Black radicals who stand around outside polling places, looking all mean and angry, and a Black attorney general who hates white people. According to sites like the Drudge Report, there are roving gangs of Black people who live to waylay and beat up white people. Hispanic immigrants are sneaking into the country by the millions and taking your jobs.

A good many of you white people think things are so bad in the Age of Obama that you actually believe that anti-white “racism” is a huge problem facing the country. White men are supposedly the saddest and most oppressed of all groups , as recent research has revealed that many of them have lost all hope in the country’s future.

The right-wing media failed you. They lied and told you that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide. They cooked up stories about voter fraud and rigged polls that were biased against Republicans. The right-wing media machine betrayed you, its audience."

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Over the past few days, we've had Aventures in Borked Electrical Systems.

It started last Friday night with something shorting and making the lights blink on and off, rapidly. I could hear the furnace blower trying to start, so I went into the hall and pushed the thermostat all the way down. The blower started, but there was no heat. It behaved itself the rest of the weekend.

Come Monday, Rico came out and found out the main breaker where the electrical comes in was damaged and needed to be replaced. That meant contacting the electrical company and getting the tether ring on the meter unlocked, so he could remove it, and turn off the electric while replacing the breaker. That took place on Tuesday, and we thought things were fine.

Then more shenanigans happened Wednesday morning. Not three hours after I laid down, Michael was waking me up and telling me about things like power surges and big "pops". I got up, and I could smell electrical burning in the hallway. I immediately went outside and turned the main breaker off, then called Rico.

Rico, Alfons and others spent pretty much the entire day rebuilding the circuit breaker box, replacing the jumper between the halves of this house, and other bits and pieces.

We had electrical casualties. The LED on the stove is out. The fuse is blown on the microwave, and on my main surge suppress strip. My alarm clock is fried, and so is my speaker system, which obviously took a hit before the suppressor's fuse blew. Our router is dead.

Thank all the gods that things like the computers were protected by surge suppression or we'd really be hurting units.

The park is talking about reimbursing us for things like the microwave, provided they can't just replace a fuse. Turns out the previous owners of this house dicked around with the electrical system, adding extra wires and whatnot, and obviously did not have a professional electrician do the work. Every breaker in the box had been loose and therefore weren't functioning as they should. Of course, none of us had any idea of this till the electric was actually used - and freaked out.

I'm on headphones for now till I can afford to replace the subwoofer, which is the heart of my sound system. I found a couple of them on Ebay so maybe next month my Solstice present will be a used subwoofer haha. I also found some listings for the entire speaker system itself, at a much lower price than retail, so it shouldn't be hard to replace, even if the subwoofer I found gets sold.

I am very glad I am renting this house - that makes the park liable for any damages done by the faulty electrical system.

UPDATE: A few hours after writing this entry, the lights went out AGAIN. And again there were surges, so we had to throw the main breaker. Rico came out and verified that there were surges. He messed around with things and what happened? The outdoor light in front, which hasn't worked since we moved in, decided to come on. When I tried to turn it off, there were sparks and surges.

He took the fixture down and discovered it was a DIY job and what had they done? They'd screwed both wires TO the mounting plate. He removed it completely, then had to do a minor repair to the main ground coming in, and now things are fine.

Hopefully that's the worst of it. I'm still unplugging my computer when I go to bed, just in case.

He brought the dead surge strip back to show us the damage done. From the looks of it, the surge overwhelmed it and that's the "pop" Michael heard. I think the plug for my subwoofer was nearest to the damage; that would explain how it got hit before anything else did. The wires inside were burnt to a crisp up to where they hooked into the series of sockets.

Makes me wonder if that generated significantly higher electric bills because we were pulling in extra power that was simply being wasted due to the short.

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I learned at the age of 10, when I was shipped off to a New England boarding school where the hazing of younger boys was the principal form of recreation, that those who hunger for power are psychopathic bastards. The bullies in the forms above me, the sadistic masters on our dormitory floors, the deans and the headmaster would morph in later life into bishops, newspaper editors, college presidents, politicians, heads of state, business titans and generals. Those who revel in the ability to manipulate and destroy are demented and deformed individuals. These severely diminished and stunted human beings—think Bill and Hillary Clinton—shower themselves, courtesy of elaborate public relations campaigns and an obsequious press, with encomiums of piety, patriotism, devoted public service, honor, courage and vision, not to mention a lot of money. They are at best mediocrities and usually venal. I have met enough of them to know.

So it is with some morbid fascination that I watch Barack Obama, who has become the prime “dominatrix” of the liberal class, force us in this election to plead for more humiliation and abuse. Obama has carried out a far more egregious assault on our civil liberties, including signing into law Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), than George W. Bush. Section 1021(b)(2), which I challenged in federal court, permits the U.S. military to detain American citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities. U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest struck down the law in September. The Obama administration immediately appealed the decision. The NDAA has been accompanied by use of the Espionage Act, which Obama has turned to six times in silencing whistle-blowers. Obama supported the FISA Amendment Act so government could spy on tens of millions of us without warrants. He has drawn up kill lists to exterminate those, even U.S. citizens, deemed by the ruling elite to be terrorists.

Obama tells us that we better lick his boots or we will face the brute down the hall, Mitt Romney. After all, we wouldn’t want the bad people to get their hands on these newly minted mechanisms of repression. We will, if we do not behave, end up with a more advanced security and surveillance state, the completion of the XL Keystone pipeline, unchecked pillage from Wall Street, environmental catastrophe and even worse health care. Yet we know on some level that once the election is over, Obama will, if he is re-elected, again betray us. This is part of the game. We dutifully assume our position. We cry out in holy terror. We promise to obey. And we are mocked as we watch promises crumble into dust.

As we are steadily stripped of power, we desire with greater and greater fervor to be victims and slaves. Our relationship to corporate power increasingly mirrors that of ancient religious cults. Lucian writes of the priests of Cybele who, whipped into frenzy, castrated themselves to honor the goddess. Women devotees cut off their breasts. We are not far behind.

“Anyone who wants to rule men first tries to humiliate them, to trick them out of their rights and their capacity for resistance, until they are as powerless before him as animals,” wrote Elias Canetti in “Crowds and Power.” “He uses them like animals and, even if he does not tell them so, in himself he always knows quite clearly that they mean just as little to him; when he speaks to his intimates he will call them sheep or cattle. His ultimate aim is to incorporate them into himself and to suck the substance out of them. What remains of them afterwards does not matter to him. The worse he has treated them, the more he despises them. When they are no more use at all, he disposes of them as he does excrement, simply seeing to it that they do not poison the air of his house.”

Our masters rely on our labor to make them wealthy, on our children for cannon fodder in war and on our collective chants for adulation. They would otherwise happily slip us rat poison. When they retreat into their inner sanctums, which they keep hidden from public view, they speak in the cold words of manipulation, power and privilege, words that expose their visions of themselves as entitled and beyond the reach of morality or law.

The elite have produced a few manuals on power. Walter Lippmann’s “Public Opinion,” Leo Strauss’ work and “Atlas Shrugged” by the third-rate novelist Ayn Rand express the elite’s deep contempt for the sans-culottes. These writers posit that the masses are incapable of responding rationally to the complexities of power. They celebrate the role of a tiny, controlling elite that skillfully uses propaganda and symbols to, as Lippmann wrote, “manufacture consent.” They call on the power elite to operate in secrecy. The elite’s systems of propaganda are designed to magnify emotion and destroy the capacity for critical thought. Kafka was right: The modern world has made the irrational rational.

“Crowds have always undergone the influence of illusions,” wrote Gustave Le Bon, one of the first pioneers of the study of mass psychology. “Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.”

The more we believe the lies that saturate our airwaves, the more we salute our “heroes” in Iraq or Afghanistan, the more we militarize social and political values, the more frightened we become, the more we bow down and clamor for enslavement, the more the elite detests us. We are, in their eyes, vermin. We have to be dealt with and controlled. At times we have to be placated. At other times we have to be repressed and even killed. But we are a headache. Our existence interferes with the privileges of the ruling class.

“Those who have put out the people’s eyes,” John Milton wrote, “reproach them of their blindness.”

There are a few writers and artists who give us a view of the dark, corrupt heart of power. The 1972 film “The Ruling Class,” a black comedy based on Peter Barnes’ play, does this, as does Jean Genet’s play “The Balcony.” So does Noam Chomsky, Elias Canetti’s “Crowds and Power,” C. Wright Mill’s “The Power Elite,” Karl Marx’s “Capital,” Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow,” Marcel Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” and Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s “Castle to Castle.” The astute explorations of the pathology of power, however, are buried in the avalanche of Disneyfied popular culture and nationalist cant. The elite deeply fears any art, literature, philosophy, poetry, theology and drama that challenge the assumptions and structures of authority. These disciplines must appear to the public only in bastardized forms, packaged as froth, entertainment or sentimental drivel that celebrates the established hierarchy.

Pynchon in “Gravity’s Rainbow” portrays Brigadier Ernest Pudding, the commander of a special psychological operations unit in World War II and a veteran of World War I, as the archetypal member of the elite. Pudding’s glory on the battlefield “came in 1917, in the gassy, Armageddonite filth of the Ypres salient, where he conquered a bight of no man’s land some 40 yards at its deepest, with a wastage of only 70% of his unit.” He holds secret fortnightly trysts with “the Mistress of the Night” where he strips, kisses her boots, receives blows from a cane, drinks her urine and eats her excrement. He dies “of a massive E. Coli infection” that results from his nocturnal coprophagic rituals.

Peter Barnes captures the same dementia in “The Ruling Class,” in which Ralph Gurney, the 13th earl of Gurney, accidentally hangs himself in his bedroom while wearing a tutu and playing erotic games with a noose. His successor, Jack Gurney, believes he is God and speaks only of love and charity. This will not do. A psychiatrist is called in to help the new earl adapt to his role as a representative of the ruling class. By the time the psychiatrist’s work is complete, Jack is cured of his God delusion. He now believes he is Jack the Ripper. He assumes his seat in the House of Lords. He rails against the unemployed, homosexuals and socialists. He champions God, queen and country, along with corporal and capital punishment. He murders innocent women on the side, including his wife, and becomes an esteemed member of the ruling class.

Genet, who like Pynchon and Barnes equates the lust for power with sexual depravity, sets “The Balcony” in a brothel. Clients don the vestments of power, including those of a judge, a bishop and a general. The “bishop,” who outside the brothel works for the gas company, hears the sins of the prostitutes in confession and revels in the power of absolution. The “judge” metes out severe sentences for trivial offenses to maintain law and order. The “general,” who rides his prostitute as if she were a horse, demands self-sacrifice, honor and glory for the state. A bank clerk in the brothel, meanwhile, defiles the Virgin Mary. Revolution occurs outside the doors of the brothel. The actual rulers, priests, generals and judges are killed. The patrons step outside, along with Irma, the brothel madam, who is anointed the new queen, to assume the roles in society they once playacted and to mount the counterrevolution.

Irma, at the close of the play, turns to face the audience. She says:

In a little while, I’ll have to start all over again … put all the lights on again … dress up. … (A cock crows.) Dress up … ah, the disguises! Distribute roles again … assume my own. … (She stops in the middle of the stage, facing the audience.) … Prepare yours … judges, generals, bishops, chamberlains, rebels who allow the revolt to congeal, I’m going to prepare my costumes and studios for tomorrow. … You must now go home, where everything—you can be quite sure—will be falser than here. … You must go now. You’ll leave by the right, through the alley. … (She extinguishes the last light. It’s morning already. (A burst of machine-gun fire.)

The only recognizable basis for moral and political authority, in the eyes of the elite, is the attainment of material success and power. It does not matter how it is gotten. The role of education, the elites believe, is to train us vocationally for our allotted positions and assure proper deference to the wealthy. Disciplines that prod us to think are—and the sneering elites are not wrong about this—“political,” “leftist,” “liberal” or “subversive.” And schools and universities across the country are effectively stomping out these disciplines. The elites know, as Canetti wrote, that once we stop thinking we become a herd. We react to every new stimulus as if we were rats crammed into a cage. When the elites push the button, we jump. It is collective sadomasochism. And we will get a good look at it on Election Day.

Since the use of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) became widespread and pretty much replaced cane sugar in most of the USA's selection of soft drinks and processed foods, the weight of most Americans has been going up every year. The ratio of large-to-thin people is fastly leaning toward the large side.

Eating fat doesn't make fat but eating anything with HFCS in it, does.

The comments on the above article make me sick. So many people think it's perfectly within their rights to judge anyone who doesn't fit the Madison Avenue-pushed physique. What is ironic is a lot of the people doing the judging aren't exactly model-thin themselves (and thank Goddess for that; being too thin has more health issues than being too fat).

It's very hard to avoid things with HFCS in it, especially in this day and age where food prices are skyrocketing and pocketbooks are thin. Next time you go to the grocery, try to find a loaf of bread that doesn't use HFCS as an ingredient. What do you notice? Those that don't have that listed as an ingredient are far more expensive than their counterparts.

This is true for any food product which uses natural sweeteners compared to those that do not.

A great deal of Americans have little choice but to purchase foods that are too high in carbohydrates, and too low in vegetables and meats. A diet consisting of fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats can get pretty expensive - so if you're not rich, it's hard to follow such a diet. It's more likely that you purchase certain preprocessed dinners and other foodstuffs - and every one of them contains HFCS.

Why didn't baby boomers get fat as kids drinking soda? Because during their childhood most sodas were sweetened with sugar. These days you have to purchase an off-brand or order soda special if you want some with sugar instead of HFCS.

The same goes for your bottled teas, energy drinks, fruit-based drinks, etc. Look on the label next time.

You see, we in the USA are caught in a conundrum: We cannot afford a completely fresh, from-scratch diet but we have "the ideal body" constantly shoved down our throats, and not just by television and other advertising. How many times has your doctor got on you about the few extra pounds you carry around, even if your blood pressure and cholesterol are perfect? Those few pounds aren't hurting you, not if the rest of you is healthy.

There are a whole host of "hidden diseases" which contribute to extra poundage as well - but those who are quick to judge never stop to think that perhaps that large person has one of those.

I am a large woman. I also have a host of "hidden" diseases that prevent me from being as physically active as I'd like to be. In fact, those diseases have caused me to be entitled to handicapped parking.

I remember years ago, when I was at my local store shopping. A slim, elderly couple went out of the store ahead of me, and they happened to be parked in a handicapped stall right next to my vehicle. They got to their car before I did, and caught sight of me when I got to mine. The looks on their faces said it all: I was a malingerer who likely was using my mother's handicapped card to get away with parking there. I stared at them for a bit, then said to them, out loud, "I have multiple sclerosis." They were in a quick hurry to get out of there after that.

We are all tempted to judge others by what we see. If you don't think so, pay attention the next time you're looking at someone on the street (or a "personality" on the TV) and ask yourself what are your first thoughts. Are they a critique of how that person looks? How sexually appealing they are? How thin or fat they are?

October is Anti-Bullying month. I wish they would've had such a thing when I was in public school but back then bullying wasn't so much on the national radar because we didn't have the convenience of the Internet inflating the problem. That doesn't mean bullying didn't exist. It not only existed, it was just as painful to us kids who endured it then as it is for the modern kids of today.

I was one of those kids criticized for my weight, even though I was bright, healthy, and active. I was beat up a lot, had nice outfits ruined on purpose, etc. My mother fought the good fight for me and made sure I got a bus seat behind the driver, as well as talking to teachers and playground supervisors about why they were turning their heads to the violence being done to her kid.

There should have been more like my mother back then - and there should be more like her, now. Jennifer Livingston nailed it when she said that the best way to discourage bullying is by example. How many of you sit there and vocally criticize others, right in front of your kids? What, you don't think bullying is a learned behavior? Think again. It always was, and always will be, so if you don't want your kids to be bullies then stop being a bully yourself.

Nobody is perfect on the outside - even those who model clothing. Their thin-ness brings on a whole new set of problems that a large person will never face, and they're far more serious than those faced by a large person. No one SHOULD be that thin so please STOP holding that body type up as an example to "strive for". Do any of you realize how much money you mis-spend on diet plans, exercise equipment, and related items? It's a multi-billion dollar business and has it really done anything for you besides drain your pocket? The answer is likely a resounding "no".

Stop feeding that industry, and stop thinking that you should look like a Madison Avenue model. Eat the best diet you're economically capable of and do what you can to make yourself feel alive and healthy. Stop worrying about a few extra pounds and start worrying about how we all criticize one another over the most trivial of things. You can't take a walk in that person's shoes so you don't know all the factors that may have led up to them being a larger person. You also don't know if they are healthy at that weight - and frankly it is none of your business. Stop turning your sights outward and turn them inward, toward yourself and your family.

Teach your kids that size does not make them better or worse. Teach them that their skin color, their weight, their acne, or any of a dozen more visual things, do not define who they really are and what they are capable of. Teach them to turn a deaf ear to anyone who bullies them for their differences. Support your kids' self-esteem and that kid will grow up happy and healthy, regardless of size, skin color, gender identity, or other things which may make them subject to bullying.

Please don't be a sociopathic turd and point fingers at a woman like Jennifer and have the audacity to say she's not a good example for the community. She's an excellent example, and you could learn a lot from her.

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I'm angry because Michael and I obviously don't deserve the least of courtesies just because we have to depend on SSI and SSDI to live.

It used to be that if they were going to withhold your benefits, especially if they needed information from you, you were afforded a courtesy email or telephone call.

But NOOO, NOT ANYMORE. YOU'RE JUST LEFT TO WONDERING WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOUR MONEY. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO HAS TO CALL, HAS TO ASK WHY THE FUCK IT WASN'T SENT ON TIME.

Social Security needed information from Michael about his housing expenses. They'd first called right before we moved and were told they'd have to wait because our expenses were about to change. OK, so we had expenses for July and August, and Michael was going to call in September, but then - guess what? HE GOT SICK. HE GOT VERY SICK. BEING SICK IS OBVIOUSLY NOT A GOOD ENOUGH EXCUSE FOR OUR GODDAMNED GOVERNMENT.

We got a hold of the woman responsible and she GOT HER FUCKING FIGURES. She found out he's not cheating anyone, he has barely enough to cover his half of the expenses, leaving little for things like clothing, toiletries and entertainment.

THAT'S RIGHT FUCKERS, ENTERTAINMENT, BECAUSE THOSE OF US UNABLE TO WORK NEED ENTERTAINMENT JUST LIKE YOU DO.

So don't tell me that is an unnecessary expense. I know from having to LIVE ON FOOD STAMPS that Entertainment is a very legitimate expense. In this case? It's half our Internet bill, because we FUCKING CAN'T AFFORD TO DO ANYTHING ELSE.

NOW WE GET TO WAIT "A COUPLE OF DAYS" FOR HIS MONEY TO SHOW UP. And why's that, when all it takes is a few keystrokes on a computer? NO FUCKING REASON EXCEPT SHE'S GOING TO PUNISH US FURTHER BY MAKING US WAIT FOR IT.

This means ALL THE BILLS WE OWE ARE GETTING PAID LATE. SO STFU AND DEAL WITH IT, GAS, ELECTRIC, PHONE, ETC.

Note: I know some folks hate this man, but you have to admit that he speaks the truth in this letter. ~L

"President Romney" – How to Prevent Those Two Words From Ever Being Spoken ...a letter from Michael Moore

Thursday, September 6th, 2012

Friends,

In two months we Americans will go to the polls once again to decide who the president will be for the next four years. We will not be allowed to vote on those who wield the true power in this country. On November 6th we will not vote for the chairman of ExxonMobil or JPMorgan Chase or Citibank or the Premier of China. That day will come, but not this year.

Now, I know there are a goodly number of you out there who believe there's not a snowball's chance in Kenya that Barack Obama will not be re-elected to the White House. And why would you believe otherwise? After the incredible Democratic convention this week, with the best rock-em-sock-em speeches I've heard from a Democrat's mouth since … since, I don't know when. You can't help but not have a contact high after this past week if you are of the sort who believes in economic justice, peace, and a five-dollar latte. Right now, with the buzz on, you are sitting there thinking that your fellow Americans will turn out in massive numbers, either because they want to continue the Obama era or because they're scared shitless of the barbarians at the gate – or both. You're convinced that the Republicans have blown it with all their talk of the lady parts they want to control even though we now know that they have no idea where those parts are, what they are, or how they work.

Yes, it certainly looks like the voters will reject this obscenely wealthy man called Romney — Romney of Michigan/Massachusetts/New Hampshire/Utah/Zurich/Grand Cayman — this man who will not explain exactly how all his wealth was obtained, where he keeps it, or how much taxes he pays on it. He wants to turn the clock back to the '50s – the 1850s – and he refuses to offer any specific plan about what he'll do about anything. He wants to run the country like a corporation but he can't even control one 82-year-old actor on his own convention stage, a Hollywood legend who, in the matter of ten and a half minutes went from Good (walking onto the stage) to Bad (talking to a chair) and then to Ugly (the chair started … swearing?). It was better than the best cat-flushing-the-toilet video on YouTube and it was a gift to all of us who know that Romney is doomed come November.

Or is he?

Last week, I said on the HuffPost Live webcast that we had all better start practicing how to say "President Romney" because, living in Michigan, I can tell you that there's trouble here on the two peninsulas and it's not just because Romney is a native son or that we like to watch kids from Cranbrook chase down gay kids and chop their hair off. One recent poll here showed Romney leading Obama by four points! How can that be? Didn't Obama save Detroit?

No, he didn't. He saved General Motors and Chrysler. "Detroit" (and Flint and Pontiac and Saginaw) are not defined by the global corporations who suck our towns dry and then split town to make more money elsewhere (except, of course, they continued to design and built crap cars, so eventually they didn't make the money at all). These cities in Michigan are about the people who live here, and in the process of "saving Detroit," Mr. Obama had to fire thousands of these people, and reduce the benefits and pensions of those who were left. There's a lot of pissed off people in Michigan (and Wisconsin and Ohio), people who weren't saved even though the corporation was. I'm just stating a fact, and those of you who don't live here should know this.

The other problem facing us this election (spoiler alert – angry white guys may want to stop reading right now) … is race. We all fear there's probably a good 40% of the country who simply do not want a black man in the Oval Office. In fact, in 2008, Obama lost the white vote. He lost every white age group except young people (18-29). And yet he still won by 10 million votes! The optimistic secret the Obama people know is that only about 70% of the voters in November will be white. So if he can win just 35-40% of them, and then get a massive majority of people of color, he can win re-election. There is no question in my mind that Obama is more popular than Romney and if everyone could vote from their couch like they do for American Idol, Obama would win hands down. As I have said before, we live in a liberal country. The majority of Americans (who do not call themselves "liberal") now support most of the liberal agenda – they're for gay marriage, they're pro-choice, they're anti-war, they believe there's global warming, and they hate Wall Street for what it has done to them and their neighbors. The Republicans know this: that we, the majority, will have sex when we want and with whom we want, will read and watch whatever we want when we want, will use marijuana if we want and if we don't want to then we certainly don't want our friends who do to be throw into prison. We are sick and tired of being poisoned, by chemicals or propaganda, we think the Palestinians have been given a raw deal and we want our friggin' jobs back! The Christian Right (and their Wall Street funders) know this all too well – America has turned, and there's no going back to not loving someone because of the color of their skin or expecting women to cede control of their bodies to a bunch of Neanderthals. So, what's a Rightie to do now that we've turned the joint into Sodom and G? They have to suppress the vote! They have to stop as many liberals from voting as possible. So they've passed many voter suppression laws to make it hard for the poor, the minorities, the disabled and students to vote. They honestly believe they call pull this off – and they just may. The only "positive" thing about this is that their need to have such laws in order to win the election is an admission on the part of the Republicans that they know the U.S. Is a liberal country and that the only way they can now win now is to cheat. Trust me, if they believed that America was a right-wing country they'd be passing laws making it so easy to vote you could do it in the checkout line at Walmart.

But the voting on November 6th will not take place at Walmart or on any potato's couch. It can only happen by going to a polling place – and, not to state the obvious, the side that gets the most people physically out to the polls that day, wins. We know the Republicans are spending tens of millions of dollars to make sure this very thing happens. They have built a colossal get-out-the-vote machine for election day, and the sheer force of their tsunami of hate stands ready to overwhelm us like nothing we've ever seen before. Those of us in the Midwest got a taste of it in 2008. Traditionally Democratic states – all of which voted for Obama – saw our state legislatures and governor seats hijacked by this well-oiled machine. We didn't know what hit us, but these new Republicans wasted no time in dismantling some of the very basic thing we hold dear. Wisconsin fought back – but even that huge grassroots uprising was not enough to stop the governor bought and paid for by the Koch brothers. It was a wake up call, for sure – but have we really woken up?

It's been a great week in Charlotte, and I'm getting ready now to watch Barack Obama give his speech. It's OK for us to take a couple days to high-five each other, but I cannot stress enough to you that unless you and I are doing something every day for the next 60 days to get people out to vote, then there is a chance we will all be saying "President Romney" come January. Don't think it can't happen. Hate, sad to say, at least in America these days, is a far greater motivator than love and feelin' groovy.

For those of us who believe that the history of the Democrats and the Republicans is to do the bidding of the 1% (Obama's #1 private contributor in '08 were the people at Goldman Sachs), and that while the Dems are a kinder/gentler bunch, they are also just as quick to want to take us to war and sell us out to the corporate interests (and, yes, Obamacare is a $$ gift to the insurance companies; only a single-payer system will stop that), this election is a bit of a bitter pill. We were hugely disappointed when President Obama didn't charge out of the gate after his inauguration and undo the damage that had been done (as FDR did in his first hundred days) – and only when Wall Street stopped writing him the big campaign checks this past year did he get his mojo back and start fighting the fight that needs to be fought. He's a good and decent person (when he's not sending in drones to kill Pakistani civilians or prosecuting government whistleblowers), and his election four years ago was a high point of such emotional intensity I just couldn't get over how hopeful I was that this country had changed and we had found our moral footing. Reality set in a few weeks later when he put Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of economic policy and then he changed his mind about closing Gitmo.

OK, so people like me, just once in our lifetime, would like to get our way all the time! Is that too much to ask? Of course, there is a different question that is in the air now — shall we give the country back to the crowd who gave the country to the 1%? I think not. So let's join in with our liberal majority and be fierce and relentless in these next two months. Let's spend this time educating people what we mean when we say things like "single-payer" and "Blackwater." Politics and the fate of the nation (and the world – sorry, world) are on the front burner and those of us who want to wrestle control of our society out of the hands of the few can take healthy advantage of these coming weeks. Don't sit it out. Don't try to convince anyone Obama has magically transformed us – just tell them four years is simply not enough time to undo all the hurt caused by biggest economic crash since the Great Depression and the biggest military blunder/lie in our history.

I'm going to go with my optimistic side here (sorry, cynics, you know I love you) and imagine a Second Term Obama (and a Democratically-controlled Congress) who will go after all the good that our people deserve and put the power of our democracy back in our hands. There's good reason why the Right is terrified of a Second Term Obama because that is exactly what they think he'll do: the real Obama will appear and take us down the road to social justice and tolerance and a leveling of the economic playing field. For once, I'd like to say I agree with the Right – and I sincerely hope their worst nightmare does come true.